In the Evil Day

74

…HAMBURG…

Baader was right, he should do it, quit. He had no right to stay in the job. He had sent Tilders to his death.

No, he hadn’t. It was the work Tilders did that killed him. Baader was also right about that. Clients often left open authorisations, do whatever you have to. O’Malley had talked him into the job at the Hauptbahnhof and he had agreed because they needed the money. If someone had been hurt, killed that day, would he feel as he did now?

Perhaps. Probably.

The job was all he had. If he quit, what would he do? He was gun-shy, there was nothing he could do that he knew anything about.

Think about something else. Think about Special Deployment. Sudden Death. What did these names mean? Deployed to do what?

Kaskis had said: ‘There but for the grace.’

Kaskis had been in Delta Force. He had gone from the Green Berets. Was Special Deployment a unit of Delta Force? Did he mean that he was lucky not to have ended up in Special Deployment?

Kaskis had said something else in Beirut, on the way from the airport. Anselm remembered he had thought it odd, but that was all he remembered.

He stared at a log recording emails sent by a Swiss engineer from his home in Zurich to a company in Palo Alto.

Lourens in a hotel in Zurich with Serrano, snorting coke and meeting Croats. The Hotel Baur au Lac. Lourens burnt beyond recognition. His ex-employee dead in a car with a gun. What did Lourens have to do with all of this?

‘That stuff from last night any use?’ said Inskip from the doorway.

‘The amazing disappearing soldiers and the drug czar?’

‘Good stuff. You’re early.’

‘Can’t stay away. I’m filling in for Kroger.’

‘Any trace on the Lafarge file, bring it straight in. Don’t send without having a word. And anything on Trilling and his Defense Department contracts.’

‘As you wish, o masterful one.’

‘Something else. In an idle minute, see if you can find a Dr Carl Lourens at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich in 1992. Serrano should be there at the same time.’

‘No minute shall be idle.’

The day went by. In mid-afternoon, Carla came in.

‘Tilders,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I know you and Herr Baader were…’ She opened her hand on the stick for a moment.

‘Thank you.’

‘The English accounts of Dr Lourens, they were cleared yesterday. The money went to the Swiss account.’

‘On whose authority?’

She shook her head, the swish of hair. ‘There’s no record, it must have been done on paper, personally.’

Mrs Johanna Lourens, probably. Had O’Malley got a court order on the properties?

It was almost dark when Alex rang. He had been on the point of ringing her several times.

‘Are you going home on foot?’

‘I am. Too little vertical exercise.’

She laughed. ‘Does that mean too much horizontal? Would you like to stand up more?’

He had discovered that she was a laughing person, something her Frau Doktor Koenig persona tried to conceal.

‘I suggest experimenting until a proper balance is found,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving in a few minutes.’

‘Along the lake?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll meet you. Look out for me. Don’t let me pass in the dark.’

‘No. I won’t let you pass in the dark. Not if I can help it.’